Women's Lives, Labour, Contracts, Documents: The Biopolitical Tactics of Feminist Art, Act Two and a Half

Proposing a reconceptualised and politically activated relationship to the question and method of biographism in art history, the chapter investigates how women artists have been using various forms of contracts and formal documents - from marriage and divorce certificates to deals with galleries- in their work to investigate the management of gendered subjects, and women in particular. The chapter focuses on the work of contemporary women artists from diverse social contexts - Andrea Fraser from North America and Tanja Ostojic in her crossing from 'Eastern' to 'Western' Europe. The argument engages the concept of biopolitics, investigating how individual gendered subjects embody capital's demand for managing the self, a process which is ultimately aligned however with the management of social groups (such as 'female immigrants'). The analysis draws on the field of political theory, art theory, institutiona critique to read anew the fraught relationship of 'art' and 'life', a preoccupation of the historical avant gardes that is inverted under the demands of biopwer in the 21st century.